Hard Facts – HillFaith

HARD FACTS: Persecution Is Every Day for North Korean Christians. This Is Sang-chul’s Story

Americans of all stripes tend to ignore the reality that the world is full of torture, persecution and martyrdom for millions of Christians in other countries. It’s not here, so we only think about it occasionally, if at all.

Sang-chul is a North Korean who faces the prospect of death every day because that is the penalty simply for using the word “god” in conversation with the wrong person.

Same for being found with a Bible or sharing the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus. People are “disappeared” by their government, never to be heard from again for doing such things.

And yet Sang-chul’s faith and that of thousands of other members of the North Korean underground church continues to be strong and growing. Thanks to Voice of the Martyrs, his story is being heard around the world, thanks to the following video. Continue reading “HARD FACTS: Persecution Is Every Day for North Korean Christians. This Is Sang-chul’s Story”

Could The Older You Convince The Younger You? About VIP Stuff?

It’s been said that maturity is being able to admit that you didn’t really know it all when you were younger and then changing your ways of doing and thinking as a consequence.

“Cold-Case Christianity” author J. Warner Wallace (screen shot from video).

But does that process also occur when it comes to issues concerning God, your eternal destiny, what are your priorities for your time, talent and treasure. and how to live your life on a daily basis as an individual and with others?

It can be immensely difficult, the getting to the point of realizing your views on those issues often are unthinking, unstated assumptions or presuppositions that are products of habits, emotions, erroneous ideas we picked up from others or faulty logic that reflects our inexperience or lack of consistent thought. Continue reading “Could The Older You Convince The Younger You? About VIP Stuff?”

One-Third Of Americans Attend Church Regularly; More Than Half Pray Often

Fifty-four percent of Americans say they pray at least a couple of times a week and a third of them go to church at least once or twice a month, according to a national survey conducted by YouGov for The Economist.

People worship in song. (Photo by William White on Unsplash)

The survey asked 125 questions and was primarily focused on presidential politics and produced a major campaign development with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) surging to a dead-heat with former Vice-President Joe Biden in the contest for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

The final five questions concerned religious views and practices.

The survey told 1,500 people that “people practice their religion in different ways,” then asked them “outside of attending religious services, how often do you pray?” Continue reading “One-Third Of Americans Attend Church Regularly; More Than Half Pray Often”

Yale Computer Science Legend David Gelernter Says Goodbye To Darwinism

Professor David Gelernter of Yale’s School of Engineering and Applied Science is famous for having predicted the World Wide Web years before its appearance, as well as having conceived or designed innumerable computing tools in wide use throughout the world.

Yale Professor David Gelernter. (Screen shot from interview with Hoover Institution’s Peter Robinson.)

But Gelernter is also something of a Renaissance Man because he is a prolific lecturer and author, the latter including works of fiction, technical articles and art criticism. Plus, he’s a member of the National Council of the Arts.

But there is one thing Gelernter is not, at least not anymore, and that is a believer in contemporary Darwinism. The Yale professor explained why in May in a Claremont Review of Books (CRB) article provocatively entitled “GIving Up Darwin.” Unfortunately, this may be the first you’ve heard about it. Continue reading “Yale Computer Science Legend David Gelernter Says Goodbye To Darwinism”

THINK ABOUT THIS: Great Things Christianity Actually Has Done For The World

There seem to be more than a few folks on the Hill and elsewhere in the public arena these days who apparently believe Christianity is not a positive good in terms of its influence on society, the law, economics and social justice.

To which I must respond “Ah Grasshopper, you have so much yet to learn.” Fortunately for all concerned, Professor Sean McDowell of Biola University has much more to say in response and he does it so much more knowledgeably and articulately than yours truly.

The great irony here is that much of the mistaken belief about Christianity is a product of the notion that only science provides truth. I say ironic because, as so many people don’t know, the very concept of science is a product of the influence of Christianity.

So enjoy the following video as McDowell condenses two millennia of history into 2:48:

HARD FACTS: Americans, And Most Everybody Else, Too, Are Becoming More Religious Today, Not Less

Two books every congressional aide should read, closely.

It is a commonplace in many of the most influential public policy precincts in the nation’s capitol these days — including among congressional aides working for senators, representatives and committees — that Christianity is in steep decline in America, that the country is fast becoming more secularized with every passing day.

That certainly appears to be the case, judging by many aspects of the elite culture and the intellectual, social media and political rhetoric it sanctions, but a totally opposite picture is easily seen once you get outside of Amtrak’s Acela Corridor and the LA-San Francisco-Seattle axis to examine the data that reveals the real America.

There we find a nation whose people are becoming more, not less, involved in their churches, small groups, Bible studies and caring ministries reaching out in their communities. Perhaps even more surprising is the fact that the same thing is true in their own ways of most of the rest of the people with whom we share this Earth.

This reality is made crystal clear by the data and analyses found in the two remarkable recently published books seen in the photo above. Continue reading “HARD FACTS: Americans, And Most Everybody Else, Too, Are Becoming More Religious Today, Not Less”

HARD FACTS: And You Thought Water Was Just H2O?

Actually, water “is a supernatural liquid with 74 unique physical/chemical properties,” according to the eminent Brazilian chemist, Dr. Marcos Eberlin, during a video interview published by the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture.

Dr. Marcos Eberlin is past president of the International Mass Spectrometry Foundation.

“You look at this and you say ‘there is no color, there is no flavor, there is no smell,’ so you tend to believe it’s common liquid, but it’s not,” Eberlin declares. “It has 74 unique properties, some weird properties actually.”

Among those 74 properties, according to Eberlin, is the familiar fact that it is essential for life on earth. No water, no life. Eberlin knows whereof he speaks, having just published a fascinating book, “Foresight: How the Chemistry of Life Reveals Planning and Purpose.”

Continue reading “HARD FACTS: And You Thought Water Was Just H2O?”